Kirsten Gillibrand

Kirsten Gillibrand (9 December 1966-) was the US Senator from New York (D) from 26 January 2009, succeeding Hillary Clinton. Gillibrand previously served as a member of the US House of Representatives (D-NY 20) from 3 January 2007 to 26 January 2009, succeeding John E. Sweeney and preceding Scott Murphy. She was known for her moderate views, and she won 72% of the vote during the 2012 senatorial election, the highest margin for any statewide candidate in New York.

Biography
Kirsten Rutnik was born in Albany, New York on 9 December 1966, and she graduated from Dartmouth College and UCLA. In 1991, she joined a Manhattan-based law firm as an associate, and she rose to work for the Department of Housing and Urban Development as a special counsel. She worked on Hillary Clinton's 2000 senate campaign, and Clinton became a mentor to the young Gillibrand. In 2007, she was elected to the US House of Representatives, and she was a member of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition faction of the Democratic Party; she represented a highly conservative electorate in an upstate New York congressional district. In 2009, she was appointed to the US Senate after Hillary Clinton joined the cabinet, and she became more of a populist-leaning liberal. She supported abortion rights, same-sex marriage, single-payer healthcare, government transparency, female equality, and gun control, and she became a hardcore liberal after entering the Senate.